Some experts point to that alcohol was discovered as an “accident” many years ago, probably before the Neolithic period (about 10.000 BC). Clearly, there are no written reports or recipes of that time, making accurate knowledge difficult if not impossible.
 

It’s not known when men learned that a fruit juice became alcoholic when the fruits were crushed, and the juice put in to a container were fermentation could take place. The first sources of wine production known of are from ancient Egypt and are about 6000 years old. In that time the Egyptians worshiped the god Osiris as the god of wine or the god of death. But archaeological remains point to that wine had been produced for more than 2000 years before the Egyptians did it.
 

Beer is made by letting the sugar content in the grains ferment. The first written sources of beer production are over 4000 years old but archaeological remains point to that beer has been produced at least since 8000 years BC. At that time the beer was thicker and more nutritious then we’re used to.
 

When honey is fermented it turns into mead, this alcohol production was very common among indigenous peoples.
 

It is said that the Chinese were the first people who knew the art of distillation. Then the Arabs learned it from the Chinese and there are sources that say that the Arabs made stronger alcohol in 860 AD. In the thirteenth century the French became the first Europeans to learn to make strong alcohol. The Scandinavians started making strong alcohol in the sixteenth century.

​

Islamic alchemists in the eighth or ninth century seem to have discovered a distillation process which looks of fully like the modern methods of producing liquor. In the year 1796, Johann Tobias Lowitz managed to obtain a 100% pure ethanol by filtering strong alcohol. About thirty years later, the Briton Henry Hennel and the Frenchman S. G. Sérullas, independently of each other produced ethanol with chemical methods in the laboratory.
 

Written sources point to that the word alcohol is very young because it doesn’t appear in the Icelandic dictionary until the late nineteen century, and then both as an independent word and in combination.   
 

It seems that with civilization big problems follow consumption. Examples of that would be the Rome’s decline. But that would require a whole chapter to go further into that subject.



​